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THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE,

JANUARY 1918.

MICHAEL FERRYS.1

BY MRS. HENRY DE LA PASTURE.

[LADY CLIFFORD.]

CHAPTER XIV.

LATE in the afternoon of his arrival in London Michael went to call upon Mrs. Roath and her daughter in Eaton Place, where, as Edith had informed him, they were staying with her great-uncle, Colonel Bertwald.

Mrs. Roath did not appear, but after a moment's waiting Edith entered the sitting-room on the ground floor, into which he had been ushered.

She was dressed in deep mourning and looked pale and tired. 'How good of you to come so soon! Uncle George lets us have this room to ourselves, so we shall not be interrupted unless Mamma changes her mind and comes down. She sent you her love, but she was resting and disinclined to move. All this shopping and business are very tiring for her, and not at all in her line.' Edith was talking very fast, in evident nervousness.

'Look here '-she showed him a writing-table covered with letters. 'I spend my time answering them. Mamma won't look at them.'

'How is she?'

Very strange and restless. Sometimes full of the wildest schemes for her own future, and sometimes so listless that she sits with her hands in her lap without reading or speaking, or taking any notice of anyone for hours.'

'And you?'

Michael spoke tenderly because he was too sympathetic to do otherwise, and Edith flushed and her eyes filled with tears because

'Copyright, 1912, by Lady Clifford, in the United States of America.

VOL. XXXV.-NO. 199, N.S.

1

she was overwrought and overtired, wherefore any little kindness moved her thus easily.

'I am all right,' she said. 'I was glad to come away-though buying mourning is dreary work. I hoped the change would do poor Mummy good, but unfortunately Uncle George gets on her nerves. He is such an old bachelor, full of fusses and fads, and with such violent opinions on almost every subject. Perhaps wrangling takes her mind off her sorrow; but it's very fatiguing, even for me, who only listen.'

'What in heaven's name do they wrangle about?'

Everything in turn. Last night it was the franchise. Uncle George has worked out an elaborate scheme for its reform.' Edith's face became animated as usual when she was talking; and she looked very pretty, leaning a little towards her visitor with her elbow on a small table covered with bric-a-brac, and her chin in her hand. He wants to abandon all property qualifications, and give one vote to every male citizen who can show that he is earning his own living, and who has passed a certain qualifying examination on leaving school. Soldiers, sailors, and members of the police force would have one each as a right; non-commissioned officers two; and commissioned in exact proportion to their rank and length of service. Extra votes would be made the reward of public service in every rank of life. For instance, mayors, judges, governors of colonies, cabinet ministers, and so on would have extra votes attached to their offices. Colleges, including technical colleges, would have votes attached to their degrees. Honours granted to distinguished men would carry a number of votes with them. In effect, his scheme carried out would, he says, give the privilege of voting to workers, and withhold it from idlers; and bring us near the ideal of being governed by the intelligent minority instead of by the senseless majority.'

'I am no politician,' said Michael, shrugging his shoulders; sounds like mere common sense to me.'

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'Poor Uncle George! It is the polite indifference of his hearers which maddens him,' she said, reproachfully. He is bursting with wrath at so many injustices and anomalies. Would you believe it, men in the public services, civil or military, slaving away in the most unhealthy parts of the Empire, vitally interested in its welfare, exiled from home in its interests, obliged to part from their children, and often their wives-men of vast experience and tried ability who have served their country for years-have no vote at all,

while the Whitechapel receiver of stolen goods and alien birth, who has never done a hand's turn of work for the public welfare in his life, gets one? It all sounds incredibly topsy-turvy, as he puts it, and indefensible. But Mamma must needs take the opposite side, and defend the property qualification vigorously. So they had a battle royal, and it ended in Uncle George's rushing out of the room and slamming the door. He can't stand much contradiction from anyone, and none from a woman. It doesn't mean he isn't fond of her. You know what one's relations are like.'

'I only have one relation in the world.'

'You are lucky.'

'Is that your uncle's portrait?'

'Yes.'

Michael looked up at the fine old face in the picture over the mantelpiece.

Choleric dark eyes shot defiance at the beholder from the shelter of bristling white eyebrows, and a heavy military moustache hid the mouth above the obstinate out-thrust chin.

On the right of the portrait, low down, hung a red velvet plaque, and in the centre of that a pearl-framed miniature-the replica of the one in Mr. Edyvean's locket.

'Who is this?' he asked, almost involuntarily, and before he had time to reflect.

'Uncle George's sister, my great-aunt Elizabeth. She was separated from her first husband under rather painful circumstances and the family cast her off. When her first husband died she married a son of Lord Dabernon, and he quarrelled with his family in consequence.'

Michael stopped her. He felt as though he were surprising a friend's secret.

'I didn't mean to ask that,' he said, but I was struck by her likeness to your mother.'

'Yes, Mamma is like her,' said Edith, tranquilly. From all I have heard, however, she was not an aunt to be proud of. I don't know why Uncle George keeps her miniature hung up, for they hadn't spoken for years before she died.'

'He seems to be rather a peppery gentleman.'

'He has his ideas. One of them is that women should be completely subject to men, and have no opinions of their own,' said Edith, smiling.

'Does he approve of your profession?

'He would have preferred me to marry, or to settle down with Mamma in the conventional way; as indeed I would do if she wanted me,' Edith said, in a softened voice.

'I can't conceive her not wanting you,' cried Michael, warmly. 'We understand each other,' Edith answered. 'Don't look so unhappy.'

'I can't bear to think of your doing hard work-seeing horrible ugly sights, suffering-torture,' he stammered. 'You so-forgive me-pretty, and with everything before you.'

'If I were not pretty,' said Edith, looking at him kindly, yet with that air of detachment and calm that from the first had piqued and interested Michael, you would not, I think, see any reason why I should not devote myself to good works. And no one can deny that caring for the sick must be a good work. Then say to yourself, my friend, that a woman's beauty lasts but a short time; and that if it should by chance give any pleasure to a number of sick and sorrowful people during that little period, it is not altogether wasted, even though it should never belong '—her pale cheek glowed to one particular man: for that is the thought in your mind." Michael did not deny it.

'Now let us talk no more about me,' said Edith. I should like to hear of you. You are going to Fort Aloysius?'

'Yes, I am going.'

'I wish Mamma could find something of the kind you are going to seek,' said Edith, sighing vaguely. It is very pitiful to see her.' 'Why should you wish her to believe what you don't believe yourself? I am quoting your own words,' he said, quickly.

Edith's beautiful eyes met his, and he saw that they were filled with tears.

'It is strange how a great sorrow alters one's point of view,' she said humbly. I am not so self-satisfied-so sure of my own wishes, as I was, before my father died. I find it is difficult, almost impossible, to believe that this yearning to meet one's beloved dead again-to make oneself worthy of meeting them again-can be given one for nothing.'

Michael had an engagement to dine with Mrs. Carseleigh and go to the Gaiety, but as he dressed for dinner he found himself regretting it, and wishing that he was dining at his club and going to bed early instead; for his sympathies with Edith were very strongly aroused, and he felt disinclined to exert himself to be amusing or to be amused.

But before he had been five minutes at the Savoy, where he

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